Portfolio: Platon’s “Adversaries”

“For the past generation or two,” George Packer writes in our Politics Issue, “Washington has been the not so hallowed ground for a political war. This conflict resembles trench warfare, with fixed positions, hourly exchanges of fire, heavy causalties on both sides, and little territory gained or lost. The combatants wear red or blue, and their struggle is intensely ideological.” One week last month, the photographer Platon made a series of portraits of some of Washington’s leading political warriors. Here is a gallery of this Portfolio, captioned with the subjects’ own words.

“What he does do is bring people together and find the common ground, which is so hard to do. There’s a real absence of trust here in Washington, because people spend all their time trying to make political hate today rather than thinking about the long-term needs of the country. You know, Al and I disagree on some things, but that doesn’t mean we don’t like each other, or that we don’t have common ground, or that we can’t be friends.” —Erskine Bowles (right), who served as chief of staff in the Clinton White House, speaking of Alan Simpson (left), a former Republican senator from Wyoming.